The Art That America's Top Collectors, Dealers, and Creators Regret Not Purchasing

It's easy to imagine that billionaires have no regrets—at least when it comes to shopping. But even avid art collectors and super-wealthy buyers ruminate on the one that got away. At MOMA's Party in the Garden this week, we asked several Rockefellers, a movie star, and some of the world's leading artists about works of art that are lost but not forgotten.

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Jeff Koons

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"La Surprise by Watteau," says Koons. (La Surprise, circa 1718, was lost to the public eye for 200 years, forgotten on the wall of a British country house and then auctioned by Christie's London for $24 million in 2008.)

The artist was quick to add that he doesn't waste too much time on regret: "You know, there are many, many works of art that you wish you had bought. That's why it's really important to just enjoy the ones that you do have. And even though you can't always acquire everything, one of the pleasures is that you can help it to be preserved for the future. At the end of the day, it's really the gestures of the artists themselves that we appreciate—their sensitivity, not even the works themselves."

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Justine Wheeler Koons

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"Whenever you travel, you always think you're going to get back to something," says Wheeler Koons "But you never come back, and you never buy it. never buy it, and I always regret that."

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Helen Mirren

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"There was a beautiful portrait that I saw in an antique shop, almost a junk shop, actually. It wasn't a high-end antique shop. And it was spectacularly beautiful. But, luckily, my friend bought it for himself, and I absolutely do get to see it sometimes. There have been lots of little pieces of art that I've seen and thought, 'Oh, you know, I don't buy expensive art. I buy art from little junk-type stores. But I'm very visual. I do love art, actually, and there are many pieces in this museum that I would love to own."

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Taylor Hackford

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"Yes, I collect photographs," says director Taylor Hackford, who was accompaniedhis wife, Mirren. "I was at an auction, and there was a [Eugene] Atget photograph that I wanted to bid on, and I went to raise my hand, and someone talked to me, and it was gone in a second. And, of course, I regret it to this day. It was an old landscape of Paris, which was spectacular. That's happened more than once. Sometimes you chicken out, and then you say to yourself, 'Why did I do that? It would have been worth living with. It would have been worth the money.'"

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Marilyn Minter (left)

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Artist Marilyn Minter recalled not one, but two great regrets: "There were two pieces. One was a kid's sandal that Robert Gober made for Parkett [a Swiss art magazine]. I kick myself every time I see one. It was an edition for Parkett. I could have gotten it for $2,000. But I didn't have any money. I didn't have $20 at that time. And the other was a bar of soap that was kind of pubic hair in a swirl made by Tom Friedman for 50 bucks."

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Chuck Close

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"You never regret the things you bought, but you do regret the things you missed. I could have gotten a de Kooning drawing. ARTNews used to publish the sales price. And pieces were going for $50 or $100, and I could have scraped together $50 or $100. That said, I just bought a '67 Mercedes convertible that I wanted in 1967, and I can't even drive it. But I've always wanted it, so I got it."

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Helen and Bryce Marden

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"I thought you were asking about a house that I regretted not buying. No, I usually buy them," Helen Marden quipped during cocktail hour in the museum's sculpture garden before a seated dinner populated by billionaire patrons Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, designer Vera Wang, and her hosts, Tamara Mellon and Michael Ovitz. "I did, however, sell a Bob Mangold painting years ago, and it's the only thing I've ever sold, and I've regretted that. But I don't have many regrets; I've been incredibly fortunate in life."

Helen's husband, artist Bryce Marden, has his own regrets: "I don't really buy too much contemporary art. It's mostly furniture," he said. "I missed out on some early American primitive painted pieces. At one point, we were collecting, and, suddenly, it all disappeared. And you always remember the ones that got away. But there is not much. We have a lot of Southeast Asian sculpture, and we don't sell a lot."

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Susan Rockefeller

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"My husband, David Jr., and I always love looking at art. But when I see something and I love it, I get it. But I like emerging artists when I feel like it's something I can grow with. And if the artist also grows, it's a win-win all around, but I buy it because I love it. Instead of having a regret, take a photograph with your mind; just savor the experience. And then that informs you on something else you might want to buy down the line."

(Susan is pictured with her father-in-law, David (who turns 101 on June 12), and David's granddaughter, Ariana Rockefeller.

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Ariana Rockefeller

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"When I travel and go to little towns, sometimes I think, 'Oh, I won't have a place for that,' or 'I won't be able to pack it in my suitcase.' But I always regret not taking a little memento. There was a beautiful little watercolor—I think we were on a little island in Sweden—and I still think about that. It was very simple, and I think it was on a wood block. It was sweet."

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Michael and Ninah Lynne

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"Yeah, I had an opportunity to buy the entire series of movie stills that Cindy Sherman had," Michael Lynne, the former head and founder of New Line Cinema, recalled, "and I ultimately bought several of them. But I never bought all of them. This was very early on. Cindy and I have known each other a really long time, and you can't get any more very easily at this point."

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Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman

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"I do have a particular story about that," answered collector Glenn Fuhrman, a co-managing partner and co-founder of MSD Capital, who was being honored. "There was one very early work by Jeff Koons that I had decided to buy years ago. And a dealer, a friend of mine, told me at the time that he also wanted to buy it. And, ultimately, we made the decision that he would buy it and I would not. It was a sculpture by Koons, an edition of three. And over ten years later, another one in the edition became available, and we ended up buying it. It's called Winter Bears. Anthony d'Offay bought the original piece and donated it to the Tate Museum. So it's great that the piece we didn't buy is now in the Tate, and the piece we were able to get is now in our living room. We paid more, but it's definitely something that we cherish owning, and we're very happy."

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Audrey and Danny Meyer

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"I think there were a number of pieces that we flirted with but regret not having bought," Danny Meyer, whose team from Union Square Events prepared the evenings dinner. "We just said, 'That's out of our range.' But you're in a city with so much amazing public art, you actually don't need to own it all to enjoy it all."

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Howard Read

Patrick McMullan

"It's happened many times to me," saysRead, a co-owner of Cheim & Read, the gallery in Chelsea. "Years ago, I went through the old Factory, and we saw one painting after another of Andy Warhol's upstairs. There were portraits; there were electric chairs. I regret not having been more proactive about them at that time. But we did later do a project with Andy in 1987, stitched photographs. And we had the show up on the walls when he went into New York Hospital. We changed the prices a little bit. We went back to the studio and actually got another group of pictures up and just kept going."

Note: An image of Read at the Party in the Garden was not available; he is pictured here at a 2014 art event in Southampton, NY

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